Simple
by Alexander the seventy-fifth
Summary: It was a simple plan, nothing could go wrong right? They would just get to Mercy Hospital and fly off, no complications. Let me tell you something, it's never that simple. Takes place in "No Mercy" OCxZoey.


**A/N This story starts during the "No Mercy" campaign as the summary states. I would like to point out that the point of view will change in-between two survivors (You'll know after reading) and some chapters will not have changes in POV. This is an OCxZoey paring, don't like that kind of thing? Then don't read, problem solved. Thank you for your time and I hope you enjoy.**

_Simple._

Chapter One: Who would've thought…?

Who, who would've thought that, that day would be the day the apocalypse came marching in. And I didn't want to be in that number.

It all began with a simple drive down the street, I saw people's kids riding bikes down the street, people simply walking around the city minding their own business, a stray cat looking for it's next meal, and then it happened. A truck slammed into the side of the building next to me, sending shrapnel, and small pieces of glass in the street. Which also included my car. I had barely made it away from the wreck alive, but that didn't please whatever sadistic master of fate that ruled my life. That was when I had first contact with the infected, that was the day patient zero (me) began his journey.

They came from in small groups at first, the people were terrorized by it, no one knew if we could actually get out of the city alive. And then came the military. The military started to pull people out of major infected zones, the evacuation sites set up within a day of widespread infection. Posters were set up around the city by Ceda, a medical corporation that set themselves up with the task of making a cure. And they were a lot like the FEMA, slow, unresponsive, and didn't usually constitute to good results. Their attempt was noble, but a little foolish. One group against the massive hordes of infected that now ruled the city? They were drowned out in days.

Then came the military's 'solution', cities were quarantined, survivors sometimes silenced, and evacuation sites shut down while the military pulled them selves up and out. There was a big change of plans. A _very_ big change of plans. The leader of the squad that ran the military's evacuations was replaced with a sadistic genocide enthusiast who thought the only solution was to wipe all of the infected out. Which was also around the time the infected began to mutate. Small mutations at first. Some leaped higher, had acidic spit, or their bile attracted other zombies. And then it got serious, major tumors on the skin that marked the ones with tongues that they used to rope people in, shorter zombies that jumped around and pulled survivors away from the group.

But lets not forget our two big titans; The Tank, and Witch. The Witches started to show up first, girls that sat in the street and cried, often attracted other people to comfort them, which was a ruse. If someone got close enough they'd scream and tear them apart with their claws, which made them very deadly. They also didn't like flashlights, if you heard one it was lights out immediately. They were only the beginning of the major mutations. Enter the Tank.

They were big, ugly, and smelled terrible. Fitted with bulging muscles and concrete tough skin they were many times more dangerous than the Witches. Which was why that most of the time if you saw one there wasn't much thought about it, not that you had many choices, you ran. The only reasons you stayed were either you were crazy, stupid, or prepared. Big guns and bigger balls were what it took to take these behemoths down; they could take an entire magazine from a sub-machine gun or assault rifle, which inspired the improvisers. They started using a Molotov in a fight with one. It was effective, took a lot out of a Tank and made them vulnerable to attack, which gave us hope.

We didn't need the military; we could, and would, survive this apocalypse ourselves. We didn't need them. We were wrong. It was a slaughter house, most of us died or got infected, others went crazy and were put down, but it still wasn't enough. The zombies started to fight back, and hard. The old methods became useless as the mutations evolved, tougher skins, stronger brutes, bigger monsters. Better monsters. And lest I forget the military, they came in too, in ways we could've done without. They bombed cities, cut off supply lines, even killed survivors on sight. And they justified it all.

Apparently people who were immune to the 'flu' were still carriers; they could still infect those around them, which painted red white and blue targets on their backs. The people retaliated, we even planed and assault ourselves against them, but the zombies beat us to the punch. The military base where the bastard sadist leader himself led his forces from was over run, the new mutations obliterating the soldiers who were only following orders. There was no heroicness, no great leader that rose up and drove them back from the base, instead their fuel lines went up in flames while that bastard was trying to escape, he never stood a chance. No one likes the thought of him dying slowly.

A while after things began to look up, evacuations began to restart and hope was restored in the people once again. And that brings us back up to speed. My name is Daniel, I'm one of three survivors; myself, a man named Steve, and my best-friend since childhood, Jan. We held out for days, new inventions coming into being everyday courtesy of Steve. You see Steve was a scientist, he had fled from his labs at the first sign of trouble and had fallen in with different evac' groups until he got to us. He was a brilliant humanitarian who was on the verge of creating the cure at the moment.

On the other hand there was Jan, my childhood friend and closest thing to a brother I had. He had stuck with me through and through during my childhood and had kept on during the apocalypse. He was kind, not always gentle but not a douche either. He was an ace pilot and could fly almost anything that he came in contact with. Before the infection he had started to give me lessons, but we obviously never got to finish. He got me and Steve into a safe room next to Mercy Hospital, a large, towering building that housed hundreds of patients at any given time, which was before the infection of course.

Right then we had been going into the hospital, myself and Jan, to get Steve's keys so he could get into his lab underneath the hospital and continue his research in creating a cure to the infection. At this point I almost think that bastard general was right, that we should wipe them out and start over. But like I said, almost. Jan was running down the hall next to me, both our bodies covered in mud, rain, and blood, which was mostly the zombies'. Jan had a cut running down his leg and was limping behind me while I took point with my father's hunting rifle that he had passed down to me on his death bead.

The rifle wasn't the generic wood stock low rank hunting rifle, this was a military sniper. My father had been a marine before he died and got himself a deal set up with a marine buddy of his. He supplied the cash; his buddy got him the weapons. It wasn't too illegal, but enough for a couple years of lock up. The rifle had great accuracy and was definitely handy for picking off any infected that wandered too close to our safe house. I hadn't had to use it much, a crowbar from the street seemingly more effective at this range.

We rounded a corner and came up on the elevator; it wasn't much from the first glance at it, just the normal two metal doors that slid back and forth to reveal the elevator itself. But from the looks of it the elevator hadn't been used in months, maybe since the beginning of the infection, but that wasn't enough to slow us down in time. When we had just about reached the elevator there was a roar, not a Tank but still ferocious. It was high pitched and nearly spit our ears as we heard it, Jan had to back up a little from the wall to avoid going deaf. And it was almost fast enough. As Jan was backing up a huge bulky shape smashed through the wall and slammed into him, slapped him against the other wall.

As the one armed hulk raised him up to start slamming him into the wall I finally reacted. I swung the crowbar in my hands in a wide arc, the rounded end struck the mutant on the top of it's head. Steve had examined the corpse of one of these brutes and pointed out that the skull was weakest at the top, and that it was a good place to exploit. The mutant dropped Jan and stumbled backward after I hit it, which led it to the wall it once was going to slam my friend into. I raised my rifle while the stunned mutant stumbled backward and took careful aim. These mutants had skin half as tough as a Tank's, but they could be taken out with a shot to the forehead. The sights of my father's rifle lined up on the mutants forehead and there was a split-second of thought in my head as I was about to fire. Why did it sound like a helicopter was outside?

I pulled the trigger and released the bullet into the skull of the beast, it's head cracking open in a unimpressive fashion as the bullet blew out part of it's brain. It wasn't a big spray of blood or explosion like in the movies, if a bullet hit you it didn't knock you back like a grind-house film, instead it just made a dull impact that was followed by intense pain. Or death. And I doubted that this thing had long to realize that it was dead before it gave a crashing thud on the ground that thundered throughout the halls of the sterilized building around me. With that over with I turned around and ran to Jan's side, my hands moving on their own to strap my father's rifle in place as I began to dress his wounds.

But I never got far. Jan raised his own two hands and pushed mine away with a heaving breath. I looked down at him in confusion, an unspoken question on my face. Jan laughed in spite and drew in a shaky breath as he looked at me, smiling despite himself.

"I'm done my friend. This is it for me. That damn charging son-of-a-bitch broke my back, and I 'aint walking away from this."

"I'll carry you." I said. Worry racked my voice and head, my eyes scanning his injuries as I tried to lift him. But he responded just the same.

He pushed my hands away with a growling stager and drew in a shaky breath as he spoke again. "No. You need to get to the top. You heard the helicopter right?" I nodded while my stomach began to drop. "Then go, once you reach the roof use the radio to call him up and he'll take you out of here and to safety, it's the only way out."

"What about Steve's research? You said his office was on the top floor. Aren't we supposed to get his keys?" I rushed out, my nerves beginning to get to me as I took in what he said.

"Yes." He produced a chain from his neck with two identical keys and a flash drive hanging on it. "He got them when the infection started and copied all of his work on to the drive. We had to get you to leave the city, he insisted. He said that there was only one way to get us out and that would have to be coordinated with the chopper and a one-man distraction to keep the zombies from reacting to the sudden activity. He said something about the news copper's frequency messing with the zombies head and there wouldn't be enough time to get us out if they swarmed."

"W-why?" I stammered.

"Heh, we had to get out right? And we both knew you wouldn't have left the city unless you were certain that every person was evacuated. He told me to take you and get to Mercy's roof while he set up the distraction. The distraction was suicide though, and he volunteered himself to do it, he was convinced that he had only helped evolve the infection with his research. Here, take it. He wanted you to give it to a military EMT named Thomas Delano, said he would understand it." He pushed it into my shaking hands and closed my fingers around them. I griped the chain tight enough for my knuckles to turn white as I fought back tears that threatened to break free and fall down my face in a river.

"What about you?" I whispered in question, my voice wavering with hurt and unstoppable guilt.

"I'll stay here. You still got that backpack?" I nodded. "Then give it here." I complied with his request and helped him open it was he grabbed for the zipper. He removed a hand grenade and held it in his hand while his other held a jar of the bile from a mutant.

"Go," He said, "Go and get free or me and Steve will die for nothing." I hesitated. "GO!" He roared and then smashed the glass of the jar against the ground. I had no choice, if I stayed we would be overrun with zombies with in seconds, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. So I did the only thing I could think of, I ran, I ran as fast as I could and smashed the button for the twenty-eighth floor and watched as the doors slowly closed, a silver frame illuminating Jan as he sacrificed himself so I would live. The doors slid closed and I heard a bang in the distance when I was two floors up.

My legs gave out and I slid to the floor, my eyes forward and seeing nothing, barely noticing the slowly increasing numbers on the digital face on the wall in front of me. I was alone, completely and utterly alone. I'd separated with family before, hell, I'd even watched as the chopper that held my baby sister on it leave me for dead on the roof of the local mall. And then witnessed the destructive power of a disastrously accurate throw from a Tank send them into a burning inferno on the side of a building. What I felt was a lot like what I felt then, but only a hundred times more, I had Jan then. Now I had no one.

I was alone.

Shit.

The tears that had once threatened to flow down my cheeks ran freely as I sat there. My hands began to absent mindedly fumble over my rifle, clearing up the scope for it in my pocket and placing it in it's proper place on the gun. Why does everyone I know and love die? I pulled out the pistol on my hip and replaced the three shells I'd used up with fresh new ones, I would need them. My hands wandered again to my weapons and instead pulled a small weapon from my hip opposite of my pistol, a sub-machine gun. Jan had given it to me as a back up before we left, and I had two extra clips for it. The elevator chimed and a rush of emotions came over me threatening to make me break down.

No way in hell. I have not come this far to die now. I _will_ make, it was only a matter of time from now on. I flicked off the safety as the elevator doors opened to reveal the construction that had been halted due to the infection. The entire floor was unfinished, the wooden supports that would be used to put up dry wall created a maze throughout the massive room. The outside wall hadn't even been finished when the workers had abandoned the site. But there was a view to make up for the lack of substance, or at least there had been a view there.

Instead of the vast metropolis there was a torn-apart-post-apocalyptic and half-chewed city that glared back at me. I raised my weapon and stepped out of the elevator, ready to fight to the death if need be. If I said I wasn't at least a little intimidated by the height I'd be lying, but I'm not a liar or a cheat, so yes I was intimidated. The only calming factor was the waning light on the horizon; Jan had suggested that we attack during the day when it was easier to spot some of the more agile mutants. The light only provided a small comfort from the dreary surroundings that enveloped me in the dank rooms of the abandoned construction.

I raised the weapon and cautiously made my through the winding paths on the twenty-eighth floor of Mercy Hospital. There were barely any zombies up here at this point, which I gave Steve the credit for with his distraction. As I walked I was conscious of the clanking of the metal chain that Jan had given to me moments before he faced death's door. The hard-drive dangled from the chain which was set upon my neck, it's contents were probably worth more than my life at this point, or I believed that it held something worth that much anyway. All I wanted now was to fulfill the last thing Steve had asked me, be it indirect or not.

I saw the red paint of an emergency door ahead with spray paint covering the walls beyond it. It was a safe house. During the evacuations the people had set up these rooms, they were safe havens to hunker down and wait for a safe way out to be found. During this a lot of people stored ammunition, weapons, and first aid in the rooms. The rooms were the key to surviving on the streets. So if you found one while you were being chased it was like a gift from above, but they didn't help much against a Tank. Those behemoths just slammed strait through the door and killed anything in sight. Most times people would shun you if you came in several feet of a safe house with a Tank bounding after you. They would just sit there until the Tank left and pick up anything useful of your corpse.

I dashed across the room and to the red door, salvation in sight, a sense of relief filling me as I got closer. But then fate decided to rain on my parade. A deep growl sounded from my left and I barely had time to register the flying dark blur that leapt straight for me. I held up my arms to dull the blow, the blur smashing into me in mid motion. I was lucky, the mutated zombie had hit indirectly, it's body glancing off me and of into the shadows with a dull thud. I cried out in pain after it rebounded and swiped at my left leg. I heard a cracking sound from my leg but ignored it in favor of brandishing my sub-machine gun. I pulled the trigger and bullets fired off and slammed into the mutant at point-blank range, blood seeped out of it's clothes as it fell to the ground, dead after a stray shot in the head.

I finally got a good look at it as I replaced the spent clip in my weapon. It wore a dark hoodie, matching dark pants and it's hands looked a lot like a Witch's, long fingers with clawed tips. I tried to move but found my leg give out under me as I made the attempt. I cried out again as I fell gracefully onto my hands and knees, my leg screamed in pain that I just came into full awareness of. I looked up and towards the safe house, I could make it. I lifted my arms and began to drag myself to the door, my left leg limply scuffing against the floor in agonizing spikes of pain. My leg was probably broken, no it was broken, this much pain didn't come from a dislocated joint or bruise. I drug myself the rest of the way in and used the wall to support myself.

I limped over to the table on the other side of the room and assessed the supplies I had at my disposal. Plenty of ammunition, several first aid kits, and pills that would dull the pain. I took the prescribed dosage of pills that the bottle said and opened up one of the first aid kits. I took out a bandage and started to wrap up my left leg, the pain was overwhelming at first but after a couple of minutes the pills kicked in and I barely felt a thing afterwards. I finished wrapping my leg and pulled it tight, which issued a stab of pain that pierced the veil the pills had cast. I was tiered, beaten down, worn out, and just flat out exhausted, and the best I could do was limp over to the corner and sit. I would wait, someone will have heard the helicopter's call and come to this room, if not… Well I'd be dead. And on that cheery note I fell asleep.

00100

I woke again maybe two hours later, thirsty, hungry, and in sever pain. During my restless sleep the pills had worn off, and the pain was my wake up call. It was dark outside, the moon shown up in the sky above the hospital, moon light trickling down into the room through the open doorway. I arched my back and stretched the rest of my muscles while trying to ignore the searing pain coming from my wounded left led courtesy of the damned zombie. I grabbed my father's rifle and checked the chamber and magazine for ammunition. I had plenty of bullets left, at least enough to hold off a horde or two, great. Not that I'd last that long. If a horde decided to storm into this room I'd be screwed, royally. The only weapon I could really use was my rifle which was best used for ranged kills rather than multiple close up zombies.

I unlocked the safety and pointed the barrel towards the open door way. Just because I wouldn't be able to survive a horde didn't mean I wouldn't take every single one I could down with me. My back against the wall I sat there and waited, assuming the worst but hopping for the best. I have no idea how long I sat there, hours, minutes maybe, but it seemed like days with the amount of tension built up. But lo and behold I finally heard something that was vaguely inspiring. Gunshots followed by various people shouting.

I scooted myself over and behind a large cabinet in the corner of the room with my rifle poised in the direction of the doorway. Even though this could be my salvation, I still had to be wary, if I slipped up and fell in with a bunch of psychopaths I was screwed, and if not… Well I liked that option better. I heard the shouts and thundering gunshots get closer, and the closer they got the more tense _I_ got. Eventually I heard one of them clearly, it was a soft and beautiful voice filled with emotion and hope. Or at least I thought it was beautiful, personally I hadn't heard a woman's voice wince Jan pissed off a Witch on accident. Let he who hath been worried about sex during the apocalypse cast the first stone; or stone slab if you count the Tanks.

"Safe house up ahead guys!" The angelic call came, the voice ringing off the walls and into the room I was in. I raised my rifle and kept my guard up, no matter what they sounded or looked like you could never tell I psychopath from everybody else at first glance. Then the owner of the angelic voice entered the room and came into the sights of my rifle. She had dark brunette hair that was put up in a pony tail behind her, the pony tail rested on a red jacket that hugged her curves. She didn't have obnoxiously big curves that filled up the whole picture, but they were modest. Her pants hugged her legs tightly and still allowed movement for her. But what was the biggest part of her look that brought my eyes on her was her face, heart-shaped with deep, dark eyes that pierced the veil of wariness that I cast on my face.

"Don't move."

00switch veiws00

My hair whipped behind me as I made the last sprint to the safe house ahead of us, my recently salvaged assault rifle, courtesy of a dead soldier whom I thanked when I took it, held ready with my hands griping it firmly. We; myself, Bill, and old man who was too kind for his years; Francis, a muscular tough guy with attitude; and Louis, a very talkative dark-skinned man, where making our way to the top of Mercy Hospital. We had heard the message from a helicopter that there was an evacuation site on top of Mercy Hospital, all we had to do was reach it. Simple, right?

My name is Zoey, it's been months since the infection started to spread and I had to hole up with the other three; Bill, Francis, and Louis, to survive the apocalypse. I personally thought that our leader had to be Bill, he was older and wiser, but Francis insisted that he lead the group, and the last time that happened he ended up in-between a Hunter and a Witch. We let him figure out how to get out of that one, to prove his leadership skills, and brains. I had called back to the others as I rounded the corner and spotted the safe house at the end of the hallway. As I reached it I reloaded my weapon and looked into the room scanning it for supplies. And then I heard a voice coming from one of the corners.

"Don't move," the owner of the voice said, and I did as I was told. I looked into the back corner of the room and locked gazes with the man sitting there with the rifle. He had dark chestnut hair that was cut short but a little longer than a military crew cut. He wore a bloody jacket with the zipper open to reveal the holster of a single pistol at his side. He wore loose fitting jeans that had a huge rip on his left leg. Blood ran down the side of his legs and onto the pair of dark brown boots that were tied onto his feet. He wore a pair of fingerless gloves that fitted around his hands like they were custom made for him, which also led my eyes to his rifle. It was in-mistakably a military issue rifle, the design much like the rifle I'd seen on the dead bodies of soldiers around the city.

As I looked over the rifle my eyes fell onto the scope that was attached to the top of the gun, but that wasn't important. What was important were his eyes, a deep hazel that held traces of brown in the middle of bright green with a ring of grey surrounding them. Beneath the surface of those hazel eyes I saw a veil, a veil of pain that was cast over him to hide his true suffering, and I saw through it. He was suffering greatly, his eyes told me everything, they told me that he'd lost everything; friends, family, they were all gone forever. And the repercussions were written all over him, he somehow gave an aura of pain that caused something inside of me to stir, bringing up a strange felling in my chest. It was light feathering beat that filled me, making me become compelled to do something completely rash and irresponsible.

I pushed away the feeling for the moment and focused on what he was about to say, considering that he was still pointing a gun at me. "Who-who are-" he never got to finish. His sentence was cutoff by a gasp of paralyzing pain as his left leg shifted over, and this caused a different compulsion to come over me, and this one I didn't ignore. I rushed over to his side and pushed away his weapon to allow myself better access. I pulled the first aid kit off of my back, my hands moved quickly over his wounds, twisting off bandages to place over the open wounds. I grabbed onto the bandage around his left leg and carefully pulled it off, trying not to agitate the wound underneath. It didn't look good. Under the bandage there was a huge gash just under his kneecap, it looked like a Hunter had gotten him with it's claws, or maybe a Witch. His leg was broken, the slight angle his leg was sitting was unnatural and probably the result of the Hunter's claws, they could rip through flesh like paper but bones always seemed stop them.

I wrapped the wound in fresh gauze and bandages while Bill, Francis, and Louis came charging in while firing back at the horde following them. Bill slammed the door behind him and Francis and Louis slid a cabinet in front of it. Louis was the first to notice me and walked over with his hand resting on his shotgun.

"Hey Zoey," he said, "Who's this?"

"I don't know," I answered. "He was here when I got in." I conveniently left out the part where he'd been pointing a rifle at me.

"Well he looks like shit." Bill cut-in, his caring-old-man-nature kicking in at the sight of the man next to me. I noticed something then, something I probably should've before, he couldn't be any older than me. It was just a random thought that I put aside for later and I refocused myself on cleaning his wounds.

"He is," I said. "It looks like he got attacked by a Hunter."

"How bad is he hurt?" Bill let a look of worry cross over his features at the words.

"His leg's broken and he's lost some blood but other than a few scratches that's it."

"Will he make it?" Now there was a good question. From what I knew about Bill that was the same as "he's coming with us if you say yes".

"If we bring him with us." I said, anticipation building in me. Francis shifted in the corner and finally spoke up.

"Then what are we waiting for?" I turned back to the man and smiled softly.

"What's your name?" I asked. He looked up back to me, his deep hazel eyes meeting mine in a breath-taking splendor. He raised himself a little from where he sat and spoke to me in a clear, strong voice.

"I'm Daniel." Daniel said.

"I'm Zoey," I replied. "And these are," I pointed to each of them separately, "Bill, Francis."

"Yeah." Grunted the named man.

"And Louis."

"Pleased to meet you Daniel." I turned back to him and lifted his left arm around my shoulders and helped him to his feet.

"Thank you," he said through his pain. Louis offered him some pills to ease the pain and Daniel took them without a second's hesitation. Daniel reached over and pulled a pistol from a holster on his left side, "Let's go." Bill agreed and we set out into the blank halls of Mercy Hospital. We made our way to the staircase marked 'roof access' and Bill went ahead of us. He told Francis and Louis to stay with us and cover me while I took Daniel up the stairs.

"Ready?" I asked him before we started to ascend the stairs.

"As I'll ever be," he replied with a small smile. We took the stairs one at a time, making sure not to put to much pressure on his left leg as we did so. We were about half way up when Bill leaned over the rail at the top and called down to us.

"Daniel," he said. "Do you know how to signal that chopper?"

Daniel lifted his head and called back, "Look for a radio set. A friend of mine used to work the radios that kept the air traffic clear for the hospital's helicopters. There should at least be some emergency equipment." Bill leaned back from the rail and I heard him open and close the door to the roof. I helped Daniel the rest of the way up the stairs and Louis rushed in front of us and held the door open while I helped Daniel limp out into the rain. He looked up and spotted a flat section of roof that was raised above the rest.

"There," he raised a hand and pointed to the section. "Put me down there and I'll cover you guys while you make the call. Because once you use that radio the zombies will come at you in hordes, and there might be a Tank or two as well."

"How do you know that?" I asked.

"A friend of mine was a scientist, he examined the infected that started appearing, he made notes of their behavior and weaknesses and documented them on this." Daniel reached in his shirt and dug out a silver chain with two keys and a flash drive on it. "He said to give it to an EMT named Thomas Delano. He said he'd understand." Daniel's eyes got distant and I decided to leave the subject alone for the time being. I slowly brought Daniel over to the spot he'd mentioned and set him down.

Daniel pulled his rifle back into his lap and flicked off the safety before looking up at me with a dead serious face. "You ready for this?"

I smiled. "As I'll ever be."

To be continued in Chapter Two…


End file.
